Just when most of the country is on vacation — including the U.S. Congress — federal government agencies become active in awarding contracts. The federal fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and many agencies wait until the last quarter of the year to make acquisitions. The last few months have brought billions of dollars in federal contracts for information technology providers. Based on trends for the prior two years, fiscal 2016 fourth-quarter spending is likely to represent between 37 percent and 40 percent of IT contracting for the year.

If Congress sends HR 2666 — a bill that might seriously weaken the FCC’s net neutrality rules — to the president for his signature, it would almost certainly be returned with a veto stamp, the White House said this week.

Apple’s chief attorney, Bruce Sewell, will testify before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, where he will argue that any decisions on mobile encryption should be decided by representatives of the people, not a warrant request based on a 220-year-old statute.

US government policies on device encryption should be decided by the public and Congress, not companies like Apple, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in an interview at the World Economic Forum being held this week in Davos, Switzerland.

Congress on Friday passed an omnibus budget bill that included the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. The Senate earlier this year passed CISA, which many conservative and liberal politicians, high-tech firms, and privacy and civil liberty advocates oppose. The latest version includes amendments that will allow corporations to freely share customers’ information with the government. “This is the worst version of CISA yet,” said Mark Jaycox, legislative analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Library of Congress, which oversees the U.S. Copyright Office, has published new rules to replace a set of controversial — and for many, outdated — measures. Consumers now may hack their own tablet computers, automobile software and Blu-ray devices without fear of being sued. The ruling upgrades certain provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is designed to protect against the theft of intellectual property. The new provisions allow users to make common sense changes to their devices to switch carriers, for example.

Amazon on Wednesday appealed to members of Congress to approve use of its fleet of drones for package deliveries. Electrically powered drones could deliver packages to consumer homes and offices faster, more efficiently and with less environmental impact than automobiles, Paul Misener, vice president of global public policy at Amazon, suggested in testimony before the House Oversight Committee. “Key aviation authorities outside the United States are rapidly pursuing regulatory frameworks and operational rules for UAS,” he pointed out.

The EFF and ESA have filed opposing claims with the Library of Congress over the future of multiplayer gaming support. The EFF wants players to have the right to support games after the online servers go dark. The ESA doesn’t.

A number of powerful tech companies sent an open letter to Congress, President Barack Obama and other government agencies on Wednesday, arguing for drastic change in the nation’s surveillance laws that currently allow for bulk consumer data collection.

A number of mobile executives who attended this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are already projecting that the Apple Watch will dominate the smartwatch market when it launches in April, much as the iPad currently controls the tablet industry.